Book 8: Chapter 25
‘Poems and songs are nice things. It’s just that I haven’t heard any of them since coming here. The annual meeting banquet wasn’t a dance ball, but a banquet where everyone was seated separately. Everyone would then write a poem to recite, so it could be considered a very literature and art oriented gathering.’
‘Poetry in this world isn’t different to the ones from the world I came from, because their text has something which resembles letters. However, their pronunciation contains a degree of level and oblique tones. Poetry needs to rhyme, and the number of words used must be equal. While the requirements aren’t high, it’s not possible to just write them with the click of a finger, either.’
‘Composing poetry is comparable to drawing for the Empress. It’s a little difficult for her… I’m standing at the entrance to her room in the inner court right now. I’m here to console her in name, while I’m here to ensure she doesn’t act restlessly and whimsically, in actuality. As Vyvyan can move around freely, Elizabeth goes to the outer palace every moment she’s free to avoid letting Vyvyan have time alone with me. In reality, however, Vyvyan doesn’t get the opportunity. Lucia and Nier cling to me during the day, and then the two of them cling to me at night; consequently, I basically don’t have time to be alone with Vyvyan.’
‘But despite that, my two moms will still do everything to get close to me, so I can only get her to compose her poem in peace by standing at the entrance of her room. That said, I now feel that mom isn’t struggling to compose a poem, because she’s restless and whimsical, as she doesn’t want to compose a poem, but that she’s being restless because she can’t think of anything.’
‘Mom looked at her pen and paper in front of her. It feels as though asking her to compose a poem is tougher on her than asking her to draw. Well, I guess that’s not right, since Mom is very happy to draw as it’s what she wants to do. Composing poems wasn’t something she wanted to do, though… That would explain why Mom keeps looking left and right and even playing with the feather on her pen all day.’
I placed the book in my hand down. I looked at Mom, who was bored out of her skin, and said, “Mom, hurry up and compose your poem. You have to read it out tonight.”
Mom looked at me and smiled helplessly to reply, “But Mommy doesn’t want to compose a poem… Mommy is horrible at this sort of stuff. Mommy never paid attention during any of these classes when Mommy was young. Mommy either wagged lessons or angered the teacher until they left, so… Mommy regrets it now…”
‘It sounds as though Mom was a very mischievous princess when she was young. But I guess it makes sense. After all, if she wasn’t mischievous, she wouldn’t have run to the elves alone and got taken back by them.’
I looked at Mom then opened the book I was reading and replied, “It doesn’t seem as if the requirements are very high to me. Why can’t you compose a poem, Mom? And nobody will say anything even if you do make a mistake or two.”